Unmarked Margins
by The Jabberer
Summary: Kirihara needs a writing tutor. Unfortunately, all the good writers are a bit insane. — friendship/mild!KiriharaOC. for fyerigurl


**ENTITLED:** Unmarked Margins  
**FANDOM:** Prince of Tennis  
**PAIRING:** friendship!KiriharaOC  
**SUMMARY:** Kirihara needs a writing tutor, and for some unfortunate reason, all the good writers are a bit insane.  
**DISCLAIMER:** I don't own Prince of Tennis.  
**DEDICATED TO:** fyerigurl. 언니, I really hope you like this, because it didn't turn out as funny as I wanted it to. This is officially the longest thing I've ever written for a oneshot. Happy birthday!  
**SPECIAL THANKS TO:** doroniasobi, Frog-kun, mayfairs, and xxTemarixx for beta-ing this and assuring me that it wasn't as bad as I thought. You guys deserve prizes for putting up with me. Seriously.  
**NOTE:** I originally wrote this fic because I had quite a few people asking me for some tips in writing. Therefore, the things that Haruna says refers to writing well in the English language. I know Prince of Tennis takes place in Japan, and that the Japanese curriculum is different than as depicted here (I didn't research it much, to be honest), but the people who asked and the person I wrote this for all liked Prince of Tennis, so… yeah. (fyerigurl, you obviously don't need to learn anything from the tips. I'd let the idea die before I stumbled back to it while I was working on your birthday fic, and I thought you'd enjoy the plot.) Please don't be nitpicky about how some things might not be relevant to the Japanese language/curriculum, because this was meant to pertain to the English language.

.

It was a well-known fact that Kirihara Akaya happened to harbor some dangerous sort of obsession for tennis. He was in the regular line-up on the school's tennis team, after all, and _all_ the regulars harbored unhealthy obsessions.

It was also a well-known fact that he hated school. He did, however, obsess over tennis _just enough_ to care about his grades–he could only be a part of the tennis club if he passed all of his classes.

This was why he dreaded seeing the horrible mark of _fifty percent_ written on the top right-hand corner of his in-class essay. Again.

"Fuck."

.

This teacher had it out for him, he just knew it.

Kirihara glared at him.

Saitou-sensei smirked. "I see you're finally starting to pay attention to your grades, Kirihara."

"I _have_ been, sensei. I just don't get this cra–"

Saitou-sensei raised an eyebrow.

"…Stuff."

The smirk stayed in place, and the skinny, bespectacled teacher sighed dramatically. "Very well. Lucky for you, Kobayashi Haruna is in your class. She'll tutor you. _Surely_ you've heard of her."

.

"_Surely_," Kirihara said in a nasally voice, his face pulled back into a comical grimace, "_you've heard of her_."

"And then?"

"I just nodded."

"I still can't believe you're failing _literature_, of all classes. _Literature._ You just make up some crap about a symbol and you pass."

"Shut _up_, senpai."

Niou grinned and bopped his head. "Never."

They continued to do their drills diligently, until:

"Uh, Niou-senpai?"

"What, brat?"

"What exactly did Haruna do? I mean, I know she's in my class but I never talked to her–"

"Huh. You're stupider than I thought."

"Hey!"

Niou smirked and waited for the precise moment. "She wrote a book."

Kirihara's next ball went out of bounds. "Seriously?"

Niou nodded. "Yeah. It was actually good. It's still on the bestseller's list, and critics loved it."

Kirihara stopped, and thought back to the girl in his class.

"Are we talking about the same Haruna?"

.

Kobayashi Haruna didn't _look_ like a genius, bestselling author. She'd always been normal–unremarkable, even– to Kirihara, but he supposed that was because he'd known her since elementary school.

She'd never been at the top of the class, if he remembered correctly, but she was always in the top five when it came to Japanese literature exams. She hadn't been particularly quiet or talkative, or especially pretty or ugly.

Haruna had always been average in every respect, though everyone seemed to call her by her first name.

Thinking back, Saitou-sensei _had_ made a big deal about her a few months ago. He'd been sleeping then, but he remembered groggily clapping for her.

Then people had started lining up by the doors, asking her to sign a book…

'_Oh.'_

Kirihara groaned.

Niou was right. He _was_ stupid.

.

Kirihara didn't look forward to going home that night for two reasons, though he wasn't sure which one was worse. The first was that his mother could be scarier than Yukimura, Sanada, and Yunagi _combined_ when she wanted to be. The second was that he suddenly remembered that his mother had raved about Haruna's book two weeks ago.

She'd find an excuse to show up at Rikkai to get her autograph if she knew Haruna was his tutor.

He swore vehemently when his fears were confirmed.

.

Haruna approached him the next morning.

"Kirihara-kun," she greeted politely. "Saitou-sensei assigned me to tutor you."

He nodded. "Right."

"Meet me in the library after school, okay?"

"I have tennis practice then."

She pursed her lips, and for the first time since he'd known her, Kobayashi Haruna looked decidedly annoyed.

"Technically," she said, "you're no longer part of the tennis club until you start passing literature again. So you'll meet me in the library."

Kirihara glared, already frazzled from having to convince his mother the night before not to come to school. "No. The tennis tournament's already started. I _have_ to go to practice. Sanada-fukubuchou would kill me!"

To his astonishment, she leveled his glare with her own. "Look, I don't _want_ to be tutoring you when I could be using that time for other stuff. So you're going to have to make this as painless as possible for both of us and meet me then, okay?"

"No. Go ask Sanada-fukubuchou. There's no _way_ he'll let me miss practice."

She crossed her arms. "Fine."

.

Sanada found him at lunch that same day.

"Akaya," he said sternly. "I hear you're failing literature."

Kirihara squirmed under his intense stare. "Uh, yeah."

"And you're being difficult with your assigned tutor?"

He shot up from his seat. "What? No! Did Haruna tell you I was? Because she's _lying_, fukubuchou, I just–"

Sanada glared. "School comes first, Akaya. You know that."

"But–"

"Stop using sentence fragments, Kirihara-kun," Haruna said flippantly.

Kirihara glared at her. "Shut _up_, you–"

"Akaya!"

Sanada was using his Stern Voice. Kirihara whimpered and tried to discreetly crawl under the table.

"With your less-than-ideal grade in literature, you are no longer an official member of the tennis club. You'll have to work on your grades. As such, you will treat your tutor with _kindness and respect_. Is that understood?"

Kirihara grumbled.

"Is that understood, Akaya?"

"Yes, fukubuchou…"

Satisfied, Sanada nodded and turned to leave. "We'll work out the details of his schedule later, Kobayashi."

Kirihara relished in her uncomfortable nod.

.

It was eventually decided that Kirihara would go to the library for tutoring with Haruna right after school, and that he would report straight back to practice after an hour.

Everyone seemed to be mollified, though several students reported seeing Sanada look especially tense in the hour after lunch.

As he was walking towards the library, Kirihara was somewhat thankful that he'd be going to practice after the drills were over. Sanada was always especially brutal on his cranky days.

He didn't expected Haruna to be equally brutal.

"Start taking notes," she said, dumping a stack of what appeared to be primary school workbooks on the table. "Saitou-sensei let me look at your essays and your grammar is absolutely atrocious."

Kirihara stared. "What?"

She raised a thin eyebrow. "Notes. Now."

When he made no move, she huffed and stole a notebook and a pencil from his bag. "Start writing," she commanded. "I'm going to assume you already know the _very_ basics, such as nouns and verbs, so we're starting our lesson off with the difference between adverbs and adjectives. Then you'll do some exercises."

"Come on, Haruna," he whined. "This is worse than actual class."

Haruna gave a pointed glance to his empty sheet of paper. "You'll just have to avoid failing it, then. Now, an adjective is a word that describes or modifies a noun. They _only_ describe nouns."

Kirihara started scribbling half-heartedly when she stopped and tapped her foot.

"I liked you were better when I didn't talk to you," he sulked.

"What was that?"

"Nothing."

.

"Hey, senpai," Kirihara said glumly.

Yanagi turned. "Ah, Akaya. How was your tutoring session?"

He moaned. "Don't ask, senpai. She's crazy."

"I'm sure she's not that bad."

"She's making me do grammar exercises for _primary students_, senpai! Primary students! How did she even get those textbooks, anyway? They must've cost her a lot of money."

Yanagi adjusted the strings on his racket. "You didn't know? Her father's famous for writing textbooks. That's probably how she managed to get in touch with a publishing company."

"…What."

"He's mainly regarded for his Japanese language textbooks, but he's also written some nice university-level history ones. He probably has a few extra copies at their home."

Kirihara looked horrified. "Do you think she'll bring in more tomorrow?"

Yanagi shrugged. "Perhaps."

.

She did.

.

After a week, Haruna decided that Kirihara was proficient enough in grammar to stop bringing in textbooks.

He rejoiced, and she had to flail wildly to get him to settle down.

"We're in a _library_," she hissed.

"Sorry."

He wasn't.

Haruna managed to put a damper on his newfound joy by pulling out a thick packet. "This is a list of literary devices and terms that my dad's using for his latest textbook. Some of them we've learned about, and some we'll officially learn in high school university. Learn all of them."

Kirihara gaped. "What."

She ignored him expertly. "Learn and memorize the first three pages, and in the last fifteen minutes you'll give me examples from the texts we read in class."

"Can't I just know the ones we'll need for this year?"

Haruna shrugged. "You could. But Saitou-sensei's a sucker for analyses of advanced literary devices, so it's an easy way to boost your grade."

"This," he said, slamming his face onto the table, "is _not_ easy."

She ignored him again.

"I can't believe you."

There was no answer.

"Because there is _no_ way I'm writing something for fun after this."

Haruna rolled up the packet and hit his head. "We went over sentence fragments two days ago. Please use independent clauses with your dependent clauses."

.

The next day, Kirihara slid a book across the table. "Mom wants you to sign that for her," he said awkwardly.

Haruna blinked. "Oh. Sure."

She took out her ridiculously-large pencil case and rummaged around.

"You know you can just use that pencil, right?"

She kicked him. "My publicist gave me a special pen to sign stuff with. He said the ink would last longer, or something."

Kirihara sniggered. "That sounds so stuck-up."

"Do you want this signed or not?"

"Sorry."

Haruna uncapped the pen and tapped the inside cover thoughtfully.

'_Kirihara-san,'_ she began writing.

Kirihara looked over her shoulder. "Wow. Your handwriting's really messy for a girl."

She shoved him away, and, after chewing on her lip in consideration, continued writing in a much more graceful scrawl.

"…Why are you smirking?"

She signed the book with gusto.

.

"Akaya?" his mother called sweetly.

"Uh, yeah, Mom?"

"What is _this_?"

Kirihara looked at his mother's copy of Haruna's novel.

'_Kirihara-san,_

_I must commend you for the continued strength and perseverance you have when you deal with your son. He's very difficult to handle for an hour–I can't imagine how you've done it for the past thirteen years. Let's work together to mold him into a decent human being._

_Kobayashi Haruna'_

He choked on air.

"_Mom_," he rasped. "It's not what it looks like, I swear."

His mother's sweet expression was venomous. "I _did_ tell you she was my favorite author, didn't I?"

"…You might have."

Her smile grew strained, and Kirihara gulped.

"I'm grounded, aren't I?"

"For a month."

.

Eventually, Kirihara's tutoring sessions got better.

Haruna still made it a point to correct him for grammar at just about every other sentence, and would randomly quiz him on literary terms, but they mainly discussed the books they were reading in class.

"So what did you think about the narrator?" she asked.

"He was an idiot."

The tip of her nose twitched. It had taken an entire week for Kirihara to realize that she did that whenever she was annoyed.

"I mean 'is'," he recited dutifully, "because whenever I talk about a character or an event in a piece of literature, I always use present tense."

Haruna looked somewhat pacified. "Okay. Now explain why he's an idiot."

Kirihara shrugged. "I think the author was using him to criticize society or something."

She grinned. "Good."

"…Did you just give me a compliment?" He stared at her strangely.

Her expression mirrored his. "Yes."

"Seriously?"

"Seriously. What kind of narrator was he?"

Kirihara looked gleeful. "An unreliable one. Yes! I'm totally making progress, aren't I?"

Haruna smiled thinly. "Now give me textual examples to support your argument."

"…You suck."

.

Two weeks into their lessons, Saitou-sensei called Kirihara and Haruna to his office after class.

"I've just graded Kirihara-kun's latest essay," he said, tapping the bundle of papers with his knuckles.

"Did I pass?" Kirihara asked. "Did I get a good grade? Can I stop getting tutored now?"

"Patience, boy," he sneered, though it seemed less self-superior than usual. "You did much better, in fact. You managed to get a sixty-five percent–a full fifteen points higher than your last essay."

"So I passed?"

"This essay, yes." Saitou-sensei looked amused. "You've been doing some remarkable work with him, Kobayashi-kun. His usages of grammar and spelling have improved, and his analytical ability has made great leaps. I was actually impressed by his analysis on the use of irony in Matsumoto Seicho's _The Voice_."

"So I can stop getting tutored now?"

Saitou-sensei's expression was positively sadistic. "No. You're still ten percentage points away from passing. Kobayashi-kun, while you've improved Kirihara-kun's thoughts, he still communicates them rather poorly. I had trouble making sense of his ideas. You'll have to put more emphasis on his writing."

Kirihara and Haruna made nearly-identical expressions of despair.

"aslkijcflkx."

"feliksfcxje."

Their teacher paid them no mind as he turned back to his desk. "You're dismissed, children."

.

Haruna didn't waste any time when she started the next lesson.

"You're going to make an outline before you start a rough draft for this essay," she told him, "and any other essays you write in the future."

Kirihara gagged. "No."

She glared. "You will. You're the kind of person who needs to plan out what you're going to say, because your thoughts are too disorganized."

"But it means more work."

"It means a _higher grade_, got it?" she whispered venomously, before calming down. "Don't feel bad about it. Lots of writers use them to plan out their novels, too, so they can incorporate more motifs and heavy symbolism. I used one when I wrote mine."

"But Haruna," he whined, "it's so much _work_."

She shrugged. "It makes it easier when you write the actual essay."

"Can't I use it for the next assignment?"

Haruna contorted her face. "No. I refuse to prolong this tutoring arrangement."

"You look nauseous," Kirihara told her, slightly alarmed.

He winced when she puffed up indignantly. "_Excuse_ me?"

"What? I'm being _honest_. I'm just looking out for you, is all."

Then she kicked him.

.

A long squabble, a brief scuffle, and fifteen minutes later, Orderly Discussion had decided to return with its blessed presence.

" 'Nauseous' means 'causing disgust or nausea'," Haruna said as she fixed her hair, which had somehow morphed from two neat braids to one giant knot. "The word you were looking for was 'nauseated'."

"…They're synonyms."

She sighed. "They are not synonyms–they are _similar_. They don't mean the same thing, and therefore can't be used interchangeably. Nauseous _especially_ can't be used in that context. Nauseated, on the other hand, means, 'feeling sick', which would have suited that sentence quite nicely. It's important for people to at least _know_ how to correctly use the original definitions of words."

Kirihara was very tempted to say that she _was_ nauseous at times, but decided it best to avoid provoking her further. "Okay," he mumbled instead.

"Word choice is very important." She paused, and the corners of her mouth lifted gently. "It's amazing how one simple word can change the meaning of a sentence–even if that word is similar to another, isn't it? This is why, when you write, you must be sure to carefully select every word. They not only convey your meanings, but if you make them flow correctly–"

"…Words flow?"

He half expected her nose to twitch again, but Haruna, unexpectedly, looked very serene as she observed him over her folded fingers.

"They should flow," she said sagely, "like water pouring gently down a crack in the rocks."

Kirihara stared.

.

"She's _insane_," he found himself complaining the second he reached the tennis courts.

Marui shrugged. "So? All good writers are, for some reason. It's supposed to help give them perspective and stuff."

"She told me that words flow like water."

Much to Kirihara's dismay, Marui just shrugged again. "Hers do."

Kirihara stared. "You read her book?"

"Yeah. Hasn't everyone in the school read it by now?"

There was an awkward pause.

"_You_ read a book?"

Marui shoved him, clearly miffed. "I'm not like _you_."

"What's that supposed to mean, senpai?"

.

Kirihara found himself wondering about his own sanity two days later.

"What the hell," he muttered, blearily rubbing his eyes.

He pinched himself for good measure.

It hurt.

"Oh my god," he moaned. "Is this karma for hurting all those tennis players? Because I _so_ don't deserve this."

The library was filled with at least fifty life-size cardboard cutouts of his writing tutor.

Kirihara poked one tentatively.

It continued to smile back at him bashfully.

He poked it again.

It continued to smile.

He snickered. "You look nauseous."

Smile.

"But you probably already knew tha–"

"What did I say about sentence fragments?"

Kirihara screamed.

"They _talk_," he moaned. "Oh god, _no_."

Something kicked the back of his shin.

He turned around. "Oh, it's the real one."

Haruna–the real one–shook her head. "You scream like a girl."

.

Kirihara couldn't work under these conditions.

At least five cardboard cutouts of Haruna were staring at him.

The real Haruna wasn't, thankfully. She was digging through her pencil case for her red pen as she waited for him to give her his rough draft of the latest essay Saitou-sensei had assigned.

"Why are there fifty clones of you?"

She uncapped her pen and reached for the essay. "They're for a book tour. For some reason, they all got shipped to my house and the workers unboxed them there. Some wouldn't fit, so I asked if we could store them here."

Kirihara tore at his hair. "You mean there are _more_ of you?"

She ignored him as she started reading.

He buried his face into the desk, but looked up when he heard Haruna's occasional hum.

He had to make sure it was coming from the real one.

Haruna's eyes were oddly glazed as they scrutinized the passage for a few minutes, though they snapped back into their usual sharp glint as she redirected her gaze from Kirihara's rough draft to his face.

"May I be blunt?"

Kirihara contemplated this matter carefully. Haruna, he had learned, seemed to have no filter between her brain and her mouth. Most people would think they'd appreciate this, until they would soon learn of the dangers of developing the sense of inferiority that it would inevitably bring.

He went against his better judgment.

"Fine."

"It sucks."

He let out a half-hearted sigh. "Okay."

"So read it again, and tell me why."

"…It might have something to do with the fact that I wrote it in ten minutes, but–"

She bared her teeth. "Are you saying you're making me read and edit something you spent _ten minutes_ on?"

Kirihara stared, horrified. "Did you just _growl_ at me?"

She was too enraged to answer his question.

"Rewrite it," she snarled. "And don't you _dare_ half-ass it this time."

Kirihara continued to stare.

"Did you just curse?"

"Yes," she said, unpeeling a banana she had produced from her bag. "Start outlining your essay. I'm going to have to approve it before you start writing this time."

"Are you _sneaking food into the library_?"

She took a bite. "I require nourishment. Now _start working_."

"…Who are you and what have you done with my tutor?"

Haruna closed her eyes and slowly counted to ten. "Don't make me shove this banana up your ass."

He picked up his pencil dutifully.

.

"She's making me write the outline in full sentences," he grumbled. "Seriously, Jackal-senpai, the outline! The essay's the important part, and she's making me redo the outline _again_."

Jackal wiped his head with a towel. "I'm sure your tutor knows what she's doing."

"I bet she's just mad because I called her nauseous," Kirihara muttered bitterly. "This is her revenge."

Marui shrugged. "Or maybe your outline just sucked."

He scoffed. "Please, senpai. Even if it did suck, it wouldn't matter, since it's not the part we're turning in. She's like Sanada-fukubuchou when he's drilling the new first years."

"Well, to be fair," Jackal said as he adjusted his wrist weights, "writing's probably as important to her as tennis is to us."

There was a moment of thoughtful silence.

It was ruined when Kirihara and Marui snickered.

.

It took Kirihara six more tries for Haruna to be satisfied with his outline.

"Okay," she said when she was finally pleased. "Now all you have to do is convert this into essay form."

He wrinkled his nose. "That sounds hard."

"It's not," she told him. "This is why I made you write it in full sentences. All you have to do is come up with introductions, conclusions, and transitioning sentences. You might want to tweak some of the wording, though."

Kirihara's face fell. "That sounds hard. I'm starting this at home."

Haruna raised an eyebrow. "I _will_ call your mother if I have to."

He looked mortified. "You have her _phone number_?"

She smirked and nodded smugly. "Yes. She left it for me on the inside cover of the book she asked me to sign. Didn't you see it?"

Kirihara swore and started writing.

.

That week, Saitou-sensei tracked them down at the library after school.

"Congratulations, Kirihara-kun."

Kirihara and Haruna stared at the copy of Kirihara's latest essay.

"Whoa," Haruna breathed.

There, on the top right-hand corner, was a beautiful _ninety-three percent_.

"Whoa," Kirihara agreed.

Saitou-sensei smiled approvingly. "Kirihara-kun, you've made an impressive leap in terms of skill. Your answers to the questions that I assign for homework have become progressively more detailed and advanced. I particularly liked the organization of this essay–it flowed quite nicely from one topic to the next. Good transitions."

"I _told_ you outlining would help," Haruna muttered under her breath.

"Shut up," he whispered back.

Their teacher picked up another essay. "Kobayashi-kun, I was a bit disappointed with yours. It wasn't up to your usual standards. It seemed rushed."

Haruna's face paled at the sight of the _ninety percent_ on her own essay. "I'm sorry, sir. My editor was pushing me about the deadline for the first part of my next book, and–"

Saitou-sensei smiled. "A lower grade on one essay certainly won't kill you, Kobayashi-kun. It was still very good."

"Thank you, sir."

"If you're getting too busy, you may stop tutoring Kirihara-kun. He certainly doesn't need it anymore, now that his grade has made a significant improvement."

Kirihara perked up. "Really? _Really_?"

He nodded. "Yes, really. But be careful. Japanese literature will be your new best subject if you keep working at it, but you'll have to continue to put in effort if you want to maintain your new average."

"Yes, sir."

Saitou-sensei nodded at the both of them, and turned to leave.

Kirihara smirked. "Looks like I did better than you," he sneered.

Haruna rolled her eyes. "Please. I spent more effort helping you with your essay than I actually did on writing _mine_."

"You half-assed an essay? Seriously?"

She kicked him.

"_Ow_! Damn, you seriously could join the karate club or something if you kept kicking people like that."

Haruna wrinkled her nose. "No thanks. I don't like physical activity. Now go to tennis practice. I have a deadline to meet."

He stood. "Right. But thanks. You know, for helping me bring my grade up."

She groaned and put her head in her hands. "When you use grammar like that, I start to doubt my teaching abilities."

Kirihara snickered. "I know."

.

During the tennis team's next visit to the hospital, Yukimura presented a copy of Haruna's novel.

"Akaya," he said, smiling pleasantly. "You're close with Kobayashi, right?"

Kirihara groaned. "Yukimura-buchou, not you, too."

"Pardon?"

Niou chuckled. "Apparently she was a slave driver."

Yukimura looked amused. "Well, she must have been efficient if she managed to bring your grade up so much within a month."

Kirihara grumbled.

"Besides," the captain continued, "I'd want her autograph even if she hadn't tutored you."

"What?"

"I'd appreciate it if you had her sign this." Yukimura handed him the book gently. "Please don't bend the cover."

Kirihara gaped. "Was her book that good?"

"Yes. You should read it sometime."

He grimaced. "Sorry, Yukimura-buchou, but no."

.

When Kirihara went to get her autograph, Haruna didn't even realize he was there.

"Hey," he said, "Yukimura-buchou just wanted…"

He trailed off when he got a good look at her.

She was hunched over the desk, surrounded by crumbled pieces of paper. Her hair, while still in its usual two braids, looked like a bird's nest. Her pencil was traveling furiously down the sheet of paper, leaving barely-legible handwriting, while she muttered under her breath with a manic gleam in her eye.

She looked batshit crazy.

Kirihara decided to try asking, anyway.

"Haruna," he said. "Yukimura-buchou wanted you to sign hi–"

She glared up at him and snarled a vicious, "Go away!" before ducking her head back down to focus on the paper.

Kirihara backed away.

.

His terror was still apparent by the time he reached the tennis courts.

"What's wrong?" Jackal asked as they stretched.

"I just tried asking Haruna for her autograph."

"And?"

Kirihara face glazed over. "She looked like Sanada-fukubuchou on a rampage."

Jackal, not quite believing him, patted his shoulder solemnly.

.

When he went the next day, Kirihara was prepared for the worst.

He wasn't sure if he was relieved or disappointed when he found Haruna well groomed and serene, though her pencil was moving at the same fervent speed as it had the day before.

He slid Yukimura's copy of her book onto the table. "Hey," he said tentatively.

Haruna looked up, and Kirihara realized that she wasn't calm at all.

Her eyes flared with intense focus, determination, and concentration–and what the hell, were they _glowing_?

Then the look faded away, and she blinked.

"Hey," she said. "Do you need something?"

Kirihara pointed to the book. "Yukimura-buchou wants you to sign it."

Her face paled. "He read it?"

He nodded.

Haruna squeaked. "What did he think?"

"…What's wrong with your voice?"

She frowned, and her voice returned to its usual alto. "Nothing. But what did he think?"

Kirihara shrugged. "He said he liked it. And what is _wrong_ with you?"

"Nothing," she said quickly, kicking him for good measure. "I just, you know, figured he'd be a tough critic, that's all."

He stared. "Right."

Haruna ignored him and uncapped her pen.

'_Yukimura-senpai,  
Strength originates from determination, and nothing else.  
Kobayashi Haruna'_

Kirihara peeked over her shoulder. "Is that your fancy way of telling him to get better?"

"Go away, Kirihara-kun."

"Because seriously," his grin turned mischievous, "It'd be more romantic if you confessed to him through here, don't you think?"

Her eyes flashed dangerously.

"Sentence. Fragment," she screeched, uncaring of the five pairs of eyes that snapped over to them.

Kirihara saluted mockingly and leapt away before she could kick him again. "Right. See you!"

He was about to leave before he remembered the book was still on the table, and when he turned–

Haruna turned back to her rough draft, her eyes briefly meeting his as they sharpened in concentration.

He spluttered.

.

The regulars looked up as Kirihara stumbled towards the courts. His face was frozen in an expression of unadulterated horror.

"So you didn't get it signed, then?" Niou called.

He shook his head weakly. "No, I did."

"Then what's wrong?"

Kirihara grabbed the near person's–Marui's–shoulders. "Her_ face_."

Marui tsked and blew a bubble. "That's not nice."

"Not like that, senpai!" he wailed. "It just–when she was writing, it looked like Yukimura-buchou's when he playing tennis. It was scary!"

Much to his dismay, no one seemed particularly surprised.

"Well," Yagyuu said contemplatively, "I suppose that's why her book was so good."

"But… for _writing_? I understand why Yukimura-buchou gets that face for tennis, but _Haruna_? _For writing?_"

Jackal patted his back again. "I told you, Akaya. Writing is as important to her as tennis is to us."

The second-year all but melted into the ground.

"It makes no _sense_," he blubbered. "I can totally see it but it makes no _sense_."

.

A week later, Kirihara went to the bookstore to buy manga.

He wasn't pleased when he stumbled upon the huge display that featured Haruna's novel. The table was stacked with her novels, and one of the life-sized cutouts from school was standing a few inches away.

Kirihara glared it. She was smiling in that seemingly bashful, know-it-all way of hers.

"I hate you."

The all-knowing smile was just mocking him, now.

"You're a slave driver, you know that?"

The smile seemed to tell him that she did.

"I can't believe you get scary like Yukimura-buchou when it comes to writing. Who _does_ that? And anyway, you'll never be as good at writing as Yukimura-buchou is at tennis. It just doesn't happen, even if he and Sanada-buchou and the rest of the senpai-tachi liked it."

He half expected the display to kick him.

And then:

"Oh, fuck it."

He found himself peeking over his shoulder (because God knows that Niou could pop up out of nowhere at any given time), and before he knew what he was doing, his arm was stretching out and his hand was grabbing for the book and _what the hell was it doing in the pile_.

His legs walked him to the cash register, and Kirihara mentally cursed himself for grabbing the _hardcover_ version of Haruna's book when the paperback version had been _right there_.

A part of him shriveled up and died when he realized he had to pay ¥1500 more.

'_Damn.'_

.

The bag of books felt oddly light as he carried it home.

.

Kirihara planned to return the book without reading it the next day. He would go back after school and get his ¥2600 back, and he wouldn't read her novel at all.

Even if Yukimura-buchou had suggested him to read it.

His plans were ruined when he finished his homework, and found he had nothing to do.

"Why does it have to be Sunday?" he grumbled, before immediately taking it back.

He wouldn't let anything ruin his day off, _especially_ if it had something to do with Haruna.

Kirihara glared at Haruna's face on the cover. "Stupid," he muttered.

She just smiled back, as if the real Haruna _knew_ he was about to read her book.

"Fine," he snapped. "But only because I'm bored and have nothing to do."

That smile looked smug, so he wrapped the book up with a paper bag before he opened it to the first page and let his eyes zero in on the text.

He closed it after he finished the first chapter.

"Why do her words have to _flow_?" he despaired, before opening the book again.

.

Kirihara stumbled towards the usual table in the library and slammed the book down just inches away from Haruna's nose.

She stared up at him. "You look horrible."

Her writing had been so full of subtext that he'd forgotten that she was so blunt in real life, though he supposed she had a valid point. The hour of sleep that he'd gotten had left heavy bags under his eyes, and he hadn't brushed his hair that morning.

"I read your book."

She looked surprised. "You did?"

"Yes."

He was surprised that she hadn't asked him why he hadn't read it before hand, seeing how _everyone_ in the school already had, but this was Haruna.

She hummed in… in… _something_, he couldn't find the right word to describe what it was, but she seemed a bit embarrassed and ridiculously pleased.

"Well," Haruna said, clearing her throat and sitting up just a bit straighter, suddenly back to business, "I want to hear your analysis."

"I get what you mean by words flowing now."

The left side of her mouth quirked up bashfully.

"But you broke a lot of the rules you taught me. Even the sentence fragment one."

"Yes," she said, apparently unashamed.

He told her so, and she merely shrugged nonchalantly.

"Can you tell me why?"

"Because you knew the rules already. You just had to break them for the flow."

Haruna raised an eyebrow. "I taught you better than this."

Kirihara groaned. "_Don't_ make me explain your own writing to you."

She bared her teeth again.

"Did you just make a demand after you used a sentence fragment?"

"…Maybe."

Haruna started to growl and reached violently for her banana.

"Alright! Geez, you're worse than Saitou-sensei. Your writing style reflected the novel's structure, and you used it more than interactions between the characters to develop the narrator."

Haruna tilted her head expectantly. "What else did you think?"

Kirihara smirked and rapped her head. "You totally could have developed the relationship between the protagonist and the antagonist more to make the clashing of ideals more painful, but you didn't, so the emotional effects it had on the reader weren't as strong as they could have been."

She stared at him unnervingly for a few seconds before her face broke out into a grin. "Give me your book."

He took it out of his bag and thrust it in her hands. "I paid ¥1500 more than I should have for this," he grumbled. "You're welcome."

Haruna chortled. "Thanks. You actually covered it? I'm flattered."

"I was actually trying to cover your face."

She glared at him and uncapped her pen.

Kirihara read her writing over her shoulder. "Just 'good'? Because I think I definitely deserve more than 'good'."

Her nose twitched. "Not until you can use sentence fragments effectively."

"alsdfjkalsf that is so not fair."

"Stop gurgling," she sniffed primly.

.

"So," Haruna said, "Did you get a feeling?"

"What feeling?"

She shrugged. "It's just that when people read what they perceive as amazing writing, they get a feeling. It's a little different for everyone, I suppose."

Kirihara raised a brow. "Getting cocky there, aren't we? Thinking I thought your writing was amazing."

He cuffed her shoulder.

Haruna smiled again.

"Just answer the question, idiot."

He shrugged. "I don't know. I just sort of read it. It was like… I was so focused on your writing, that I didn't pay attention to anything else."

She seemed to accept that answer. "It does take a while for you to be aware of your feeling. It might take longer for you, though. For some reason, you're very picky about the writing you connect with, but I guess I'm supposed to be flattered by that."

She had almost finished packing up by then, and was just reaching for her pencil case when Kirihara suddenly slammed his hand on top of it.

"What's the feeling you get?" he found himself asking.

Her eyes glazed over fondly. "My heart aches a little."

"That sounds painful."

"No. It's a beautiful feeling, really. It's almost as if the writing takes my heart and pulls at it."

Kirihara looked down at her pencil case awkwardly. "I uh, forgot to breathe at some parts, if that helps."

There was pregnant pause, and much to his horror, Haruna seemed to be turning a shade of rosy pink at the ears.

Though the fact that he could feel heat emitting out of his own cheeks could have scared him, too.

Then she scoffed, and Kirihara was a bit relieved, because _this_ was the Haruna he knew. "Weren't you listening to a word I said? It'll take you a couple more times before you know the feeling."

He pulled one of her braids. "Then why ask me that in the first place?"

Haruna snatched the pencil case out of his hand and stuffed it in her bag. "I'll let you know when I finish my next book, so you can look for that feeling again."

Kirihara grinned. "Okay."

She turned to leave, and he opened the book again.

"Wow," he said. "Your handwriting got _worse_."

She whacked him with one of her remaining life-sized cutouts.

.

'_Kirihara-kun,_

_Good job.  
Please don't forget what I taught you.  
I really don't want to have to go through these past few weeks again._

_Kobayashi Haruna'_

.

**omake.**

"Marui-senpai?"

"Yeah?"

"What feeling do _you_ get when you read some really good writing?"

"…The _hell_ are you talking about."


End file.
